Such was the atmosphere surrounding the old Capitol Theatre the night Brian May dropped
by with a few friends. The set contained some of his new songs and a couple of
tunes from the days that made him, and the band that went along with him (and
what was their name again??), famous over
the course of three decades.
The support act, The
Utopian Babies, were going through their motions when we finally
took our seats. Familiar and poppy with an alternative edge, they seemed to
lose the older crowd with their newer style. The resulting applause was
obligatorily polite and relief seemed to spread through the room when they were
done.
When the house lights dimmed for the final time, the announcer
proclaimed the next act to be Brian's
Tennessean cousin TE Ennison. (Marvellous how this Elvis
look-&-sound alike, who launched into Roy
Orbison's Only Make Believe, then his own tune Come On
Baby, looked so much like Brian with a wig
and shades). Finally, the lights died on TE, and were redirected
toward a translucent curtain - highlighting an image of the tree from the CD
cover of "Another World".
A spot fell on a bent figure that we recognised. The crowd applauded Brian May with
the enthusiasm with which he would have been greeted throughout the world. The
show was initially slow to take off, with two tunes from the new album, but it
changed pace rather abruptly, with the traditional medley, tonight of a
close-to-the-original I Want It All and Tear It Up mixed rather
unfortunately with a weak and disappointing version of Fat Bottomed Girls.
Through the rest of the evening we were taken all through Brian's career
with the 70s glam super-group and both his
"Back To The Light" and "Another World"
albums. Performance highlights included the true-to-form traditional guitar
overture with all the trimmings, effects and sheer volume that we had always
expected; Eric (Kiss, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper) Singer's blazing
sticks-afire drum solo immediately after that; Resurrection, Driven
By You, the heart rendering renditions of Love of My Life and Too
Much Love; and a low, bluesy version of Hammer To Fall which kicked
madly into the original tempo just before Brian launched
into the much-anticipated aforementioned solo.
Personally, the band could lose the Björn Again girls completely:
they detracted from the show aurally and didn't do much for the overall
presentation. But the support by Eric, along with Spike("A
Kind of Magic", "Live Magic") Edney,
Neil (Black Sabbath)
Murray and Jamie Moses
was inspiring to say the least making for the best night most of us had had
since Brian's
last visit here in 1984.
The night was dedicated to the late Cozy Powell who, before his death
last year, played on both Brian's albums,
but it felt more like another longer-passed legend was alive and onside
with his old friend tonight.